When a Scot Loves a Lady

forward she felt Leam at her shoulder, his strength and thorough mastery of her heart. Happiness buoyed her curtsy.

“Lady Katherine.” The viscount bowed. He turned to Leam. “Yale met me at the Club this morning. He already told me all.”

“I asked him to do so.”

Kitty darted a glance at Leam. His jaw was taut but his eyes still sparkled.

“I asked you here for another reason,” he said. “I require you now to apologize to Lady Katherine for burdening her with your previous demands, and to assure her that you will not in the future make similar demands.”

Lord Gray’s gaze flickered aside. “You have the dogs with you, I see, yet dressed as you are.”

“Indeed.”

“So you are finished finally, then?”

Leam nodded.

The viscount seemed to draw a slow breath. He turned to her. “My lady, on behalf of the king and country I serve, I render thanks to you and assure you we will not be seeking your assistance again. It seems we may have been mistaken in information we had of Lord Chamberlayne. We will, of course, continue to pursue the rebels, including his son, but Lord Chamberlayne will not bear any measure of guilt.”

“Now the apology,” Leam ground out.

Lord Gray bowed deeply. “I sincerely beg your pardon, ma’am.”

“Accepted, my lord.”

“Prettily done, Gray.” Leam’s voice was dry. “Now go to the devil.”

The viscount grinned, then nodded. “In the matter of Cox, you will still want Grimm about, I presume.”

“For now.”

Kitty looked between them. “Mr. Cox, from Shropshire?”

Leam’s brow creased.

“I can see my presence has become de trop.” Lord Gray bowed again. “My lady. Blackwood.” He went to his horse, mounted, and spurred away.

She turned to Leam. “What haven’t you told me? Is Mr. Cox involved in all of this too?”

He moved close to her. “Not Gray’s project.” Again his gaze seemed thoroughly hers, his eyes scanning her face. “As soon as I know more, I will tell you all. But now you must go home so that I can call on you properly.”

She could sink into that gaze and never leave it. “But I don’t know why—”

“Kitty.” He smiled. “Not here, where I cannot—” His eyes flickered up. A carriage approached. He stared over her shoulder and his gaze lost its intoxicating intensity, growing momentarily fixed, then

… haunted.

She pivoted around.

Descending to the path from an elegant black carriage with the assistance of a footman, a lady lifted her face to them. She wore a glimmering white carriage gown, with frothy silk of pale blue gathered about her shoulders, gloves the color of the winter sky, and a tiny parasol on her arm trimmed in lace. A wide-brimmed hat of eyelet dipped over her brow, tilting jauntily to one side, revealing a fringe of blond ringlets and bow-shaped, petal-pink lips.

Leam’s cheeks were gray, his face stark.

“Leam, who is she?” But in the pit of her stomach, and in her heedless heart, Kitty knew. She had never truly deserved happiness.

It was an angel, of course, come to steal heaven away now that she stood upon its threshold.

Chapter 24

“Who is she?” Kitty repeated, in a whisper now. “She—she is my—” Leam struggled for air, sanity. It could not be. He dragged his gaze away from the ghostly vision to the serene elegance of the woman beside him.

But Kitty’s beautiful eyes were fraught. “Your?”

The words rose upon a choke. “My wife.”

“Did she perhaps have a twin?”

Kitty’s mouth tilted up, quivering, and Leam’s entire body went numb. She was perfect and he wanted to grab her and crush her to him and never release her. But Cornelia walked toward him, ticking her parasol lightly from side to side in the crook of her elbow. No twin, even identical, could reproduce those twinkling blue eyes, that delicate smile that always seemed a bit uncertain and had never failed to tie him in knots, the dimples in her rounded cheeks, and her dainty stride. Nearly six years older, she was none the worse for it, still stunningly pretty, and moving directly toward him.

He stared.

She halted two yards away, hat brim shading her face from the sun. Her lips curved into a tremulous smile.

“Good day, my lord husband.” Her voice was the same, light and demure and like a nightmare. She curtsied, dipping her gold head gracefully.

Kitty pivoted and moved straight for her carriage.

Pulling his gaze from Cornelia, Leam went after her. She tried to avoid his touch, but he made her take his hand to assist her into the carriage. She was shaking, or he. She would not meet his gaze.

Shock dizzied him.

“Kitty, say something.” His voice was a rasp.

She laced her fingers tightly together in her lap. “Felicitations, my lord.”

“What? ”

He had to move aside for her maid to climb in. Shoulders back and chin high, Kitty directed her attention forward.

“Move on,” she said to the coachman, the fellow snapped the traces, and Leam stepped back as the carriage jolted into motion.

He watched her go, the woman he had come to love more than life, unable to turn toward the woman who, almost six years earlier, had changed that life forever. She and James and he together, a wicked, sorry tangle.

He swung around and strode to Cornelia. She backed up a step.

“Leam?” Her blue eyes darted over his face. “You—you are still very handsome. Are these your dogs? Who was that lady and why did she cut me?”

“Cut you?” He shook his head. “I.” He nearly gagged on his voice. “Thought.” He pressed out the words. “You.” But they would not come easily. “ Dead.” He could not breathe. His world had turned upside down. “I buried you.”

“But I am here. You can see that.” Her pink lips trembled like her tiny hands around her parasol stem. “Leam, you are frightening me.”

“Who is that woman lying in the tomb at Alvamoor? Did you kill someone and falsify your death?”

“No! You killed someone! James!” Tears sprang to her eyes. She whirled about and hurried toward her carriage. He pursued. The footman handed her up. An elderly lady dressed in black glared at him from within.

“Go, go, Frank,” Cornelia called out, waving at the coachman. “Go quickly! I knew I should not do this.”

Leam went to the lead horse and grabbed its bridle. The coachman darted looks between them.

“Do not move this carriage, man, or I will take that whip and use it on you.”

“He would not, Frank. He is not that sort. Go.”

“You haven’t known me for five years, Cornelia. You have no idea of what I am now capable.”

“Yes, milord.” The coachman tugged his cap.